Living Heritage

Co-creation Toolkit

In a dynamic European context, cultural heritage institutions are redefining their roles and indeed themselves. The challenges that institutions face today – technological innovation, sustainability, citizenship, lifelong learning and cultural diversity – are complex and almost always impact upon more than one domain. Traditional means of innovation do not always work anymore and instead new approaches emerge that involve end-users and professionals at all levels, to enable a collective imagining, building and experiencing of new futures.

At its core, co-creation is about involving parties outside of your company or organisation (users, stakeholders) to create value jointly, e.g. during the ideation phase of a new product or service development. Through a series of steps, people are invited to contribute, evaluate, and refine ideas and concepts. The result provides fresh perspectives and useful inspiration. Sounds good, right?

Within the RICHES project, we’re doing the same thing with young adults, museum staff and designers, taking the notion of co-creation literally and trying to move beyond the use of mere words. The goal? Designing potential intervention strategies together.

In this framework, a website was developed by Waag Society especially for heritage professionals that aim to explore the possibilities and challenges of co-creation. We hope it inspires you through the case studies and toolkits to start thinking about co-creation in an informed and concrete way. Enjoy the site and please send us your examples and ideas to enhance the content of the site!